Deciding India’s Future

The Occupy Wall Street movement taking place globally is a clear expression of the frustration that you people are facing globally: too few jobs, too many degrees and a lack of direction. As India’s youth continue to grow, we need to take some lessons from the movement and plan accordingly.

Over sixty percent of the Indian population is under the age of twenty-five and within the next decade, India will have a sizable percent of the world’s young population. Our education, skills and employment policies today will inevitably impact global development tomorrow.

While the government has promised to improve academic standards through the introduction of tablets and an increasingly decentralized education system, it is civil society organizations that are ultimately going to make a significant dent in the space. Within education are two major types of players: the private institutes that target upper and middle-income households and the charitable institutes that target low-income households mostly with the support of external donor organizations.

Under the former category are organizations such as TeamLease. The for-profit vocational institute was started as a human resources firm that provided jobs in the retail and hospitality industry. The founder, Manish Sabharwal eventually saw prospect in the education industry, particularly in vocational education, and decided to expand the company’s work.

Consequently, TeamLease is now starting vocational training institutes in Gujarat to train and place individuals in the private sector. TeamLease has grown more than three times in the past ten years and its continued growth only speaks to market demand. However, Team Lease will only attract young people with certain skill level, exposure and family income.

For the majority, those in tier two and three towns, away from the glitz of the city, there are solid organizations such as dreamfly who are working to provide opportunity and exposure to young people. The mission of dreamfly is to work in communities in conflict by bringing together people from diverse backgrounds. In India they have found their niche in Ulubedia in West Bengal.

Ulubedia is a Muslim-dominated community with high unemployment rates and low literacy levels. In the midst of such depressing conditions, dreamfly has taken on the responsibility of building a computer lab where children from diverse backgrounds can come together and learn through technology.

By donating thirty-two Multipoint computers and two laptops, the organizations aims to encourage group-work and expose students to the world beyond Ulubedia. Dreamfly is a unique organization because they not only focus on improving the quality of education but also encouraging students to open their minds and be accepting of people from different faiths, castes and backgrounds. Thus, ensuring that youth are not only intelligent but also tolerant and civically oriented.

However, to ensure that students remain competitive, dreamfly will also be including Microsoft training program software that will provide older students the opportunity to be certified with the skills for entry-level data work. Dreamfly has worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan and now is expanding its reach to India and Rwanda.

On Wall Street and across the world we are seeing the fight against ‘the big’ come to life: big governments and big businesses. It is ironic that the protest is again the big when in fact there is a need to reconfigure the big with the support of the youth. As India continues to grow, young people will be the lifeline of this country. However, in order to ensure that we are adequately prepared we need to give the skills and training required so that we can empower youth and in turn empower the country.

You can follow me on twitter @rwitwika

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Author

Rwitwika Bhattacharya is the founder of Swaniti Initiative, which supports parliamentarians on development issues. At Swaniti, she has the pleasure of working at the nexus of governance and development. Prior to this, she worked at the World Bank on issues of labor markets and political economy. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School's Public Policy program and currently resides in Delhi.
For more information on development and data follow @swaniti.

Rwitwika Bhattacharya is the founder of Swaniti Initiative, which supports parliamentarians on development issues. At Swaniti, she has the pleasure of worki. . .

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Rwitwika Bhattacharya is the founder of Swaniti Initiative, which supports parliamentarians on development issues. At Swaniti, she has the pleasure of working at the nexus of governance and development. Prior to this, she worked at the World Bank on issues of labor markets and political economy. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School's Public Policy program and currently resides in Delhi.
For more information on development and data follow @swaniti.

Rwitwika Bhattacharya is the founder of Swaniti Initiative, which supports parliamentarians on development issues. At Swaniti, she has the pleasure of worki. . .